You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them. Sermons
I. UNDERSTANDING DEPENDS ON THE CONDITION OF THE HEART If the heart is wrong the judgment will be at fault. We do not judge simply as we see with our eyes. The mental and spiritual condition within largely determines the shape and character of our convictions. Observe some of the states of the heart that hide it from understanding. 1. Obtuseness. The heart may be simply dull and blind to truth. if the light shines with meridian splendour, the man who has cataracts in his eyes will stumble into the ditch as surely as if he were walking in midnight darkness. Some men have no eyes of sympathy with which to see their neighbours; they cannot understand them. Some have no spiritual perceptions of God; and they cannot understand him. 2. Prejudice. We see with the mind as well as with the eyes. Our perception is an amalgam of sight and thought. If the thought is warped, the perception will be crooked. A prejudiced heart excludes truth from the understanding. 3. Passion. Strong feeling blinds the judgment by its own fiery fury. The enraged heart, the sin-loving heart, the ill-regulated heart, are all void of understanding. We need a new and clean heart that we may receive God's truth. II. THE HEART FROM WHICH UNDERSTANDING IS HIDDEN CANNOT ENJOY THE FAVOUR OF GOD. His favour does not depend on intellectual conditions. Purely mental perplexity is no barrier against the soul in its enjoyment of the Divine love, for God does not wait for perfect orthodoxy before he will help and bless his children. But we have now to do with quite another kind of error. The error which cuts off from God's favour is moral; it springs from a perversion of heart. For this we are to blame, and therefore the loss it entails is justly deserved. The loss of God's favour is seen throughout, both in the origin and in the results of the error. 1. In its origin. The startling thought of Job is that it is God who has hidden the heart from understanding. The blindness is judicial, a result of God's action. This nay look like attributing moral evil to God. If Job in his terrible darkness meant anything of the kind, of course we know that he must have been in error. (1) But without going so far as this, we may see that God would withdraw his aiding Spirit from the perverse heart. The result would be to hide that heart from understanding,. (2) The laws of human life and thought which connect perversity of heart with lack of understanding proceed from God. (3) It is not well that truth should be understood by the perverse heart. Christ bade his disciples not cast their pearls before swine. The ideas for which we are not morally fit would be misapplied and degraded if we could receive them. 2. In its results. All error is dangerous, and moral error is fatal. God pities the bewildered doubter; he is angry with the perverse and wilful thinker, who goes wrong in thought because his heart is wrong. Such a man cannot prosper under the favour of God. - W.F.A.
And where is now my hope? The Evangelist. ? —I. OCCASIONS IN LIFE WHICH FORCE UPON US THIS INQUIRY. 1. In those seasons when the troubles of life press heavily. 2. When our human dependencies have failed. 3. When the terrors of a guilty conscience seize us. 4. The question irresistibly presses upon all as death seems to approach. II. THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF THOSE WHO HAVE NOT PROVIDED AGAINST THESE SEASONS OF TRIAL. 1. All earthly hopes are, in their very nature, inadequate to our exigencies. 2. All the hopes which are derived from the world and the creatures are temporal in their duration. 3. If they could endure and go with us into eternity, or the separate state of souls, — yet they would not stand the test of the final day of account. III. SEE THE NECESSITY OF CLOSE SELF-EXALTATION. 1. This examination should refer to the object of our hope. 2. We should examine whether we have a well-grounded and scriptural prospect of attaining to the object of our hope. It is possible that we may practise self-delusion. 3. Your hope may be good as to its object, its foundation may be the work of Jesus Christ, an anchor sure and steadfast, but have you a valid title to appropriate that hope to yourself? 4. Inquire whether your hope has borne any trials. Application —(1) The discovery that our hope is good, and entereth into that within the veil, may well afford exultation. 2. But, if our hope is found vain and weak, or absolutely false, it is high time to abandon it and seek a better. (The Evangelist.) 1. Is your hope in the world? This is the case with multitudes. Then your hope is set on that which is not good. 2. Is your hope in sin? Is that possible? The pleasures of sin are but for a season, the pains of sin are for eternity. 3. Is your hope in your works? This was the case with the ancient Pharisees. They "went about to establish their own righteousness," but failed in the attempt. All who are "of the works of the law" are under it as a covenant; and as such it requires perfect obedience, or there is no justification by it. 4. Is your hope in your knowledge? "Knowledge puffeth up." "The Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." 5. Is your hope in Christ? Then it is in the right place. The hope of Job was in him — the Redeemer; so was the hope of the primitive Christians. II. THE CASES IN WHICH INQUIRERS ARE WARRANTED TO HOPE. We are not warranted to hold out hope in every case. You must be made to feel your guilt, before you will give up your false hope. You must be made to feel your insufficiency before you will apply to Christ for relief. 1. If you repent you are warranted to hope. 2. If you believe, you are warranted to hope. 3. If you obey, you are warranted to hope. 4. If you love Christ, you are warranted to hope. 5. So you are, if you love the house of prayer. 6. And if you love the brethren. 7. And if you seek the Divine glory. III. THE QUALITIES OF THE HOPE WHICH THE GOSPEL INSPIRES. 1. It is a Divine hope. 2. A lively hope. 3. A joyful hope. 4. A liberal hope. 5. A permanent hope.In conclusion, let us consider the inquiry in the text in reference to ourselves, and thus endeavour to make a suitable improvement of the subject. Where is now my hope? (Thomas Hitchin.). Then answered Bildad the Shuhite. How wonderfully well the three comforters painted the portrait of wickedness! Nothing can be added to their delineation of sin. Every touch is the touch of a master. If you would see what wickedness is, read the speeches which are delivered in the Book of Job. Nothing can be added to their grim truthfulness. But there is a great danger about this; there is a danger that men may make a trade of denouncing wickedness. There is also a danger that men may fall into a mere habit of making prayers. This is the difficulty of all organised and official spiritual life. It is a danger which we cannot set aside; it is, indeed, a peril we can hardly modify; but there is a horrible danger in having to read the Bible at an appointed hour, to offer a prayer at a given stroke of the clock, and to assemble for worship upon a public holiday, But all this seems to be unavoidable; the very spirit of order requires it; there must be some law of consent and fellowship, otherwise public worship would be impossible; but consider the tremendous effect upon the man who has to conduct that worship! It is a terrible thing to have to denounce sin every Sunday twice at least; it is enough to ruin the soul to be called upon to utter holy words at mechanical periods.(Joseph Parker, D. D.) Homilist. We may look at the words of Bildad in this chapter in two aspects: as representing the reprehensible in conduct, and the retributive in destiny.I. THE REPREHENSIBLE IN CONDUCT. There are four things implied in the second, third, and fourth verses, which must be regarded as elements of evil. 1. There is wordiness. "How long will it be ere ye make an end of words?" Job had spoken much. Wordiness implies superficiality. Copiousness of speech is seldom retold in connection with profundity of thought. But it promotes, as well as implies, infertility of thought. The man of fluent utterance gets on so well without thinking, that he loses the habit of reflection. Nor is it less an evil to the hearer. The wordy man wastes their precious time, exhausts their patience, and often irritates his auditors. 2. There is unthoughtfulness. "Mark, and afterwards we will speak." He insinuates that Job had spoken without thought or intelligence, and calls upon him to deliberate before he speaks. Unthoughtfulness is an evil of no small magnitude. 3. There is contemptuousness. "Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight?" Job had said in the preceding chapter, "Thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them." Bildad perhaps refers to this, and insinuates that Job had treated him and those who were on his side as the beasts of the field — "senseless and polluted." Contempt for men is an evil: it is a moral wrong. 4. There is rage. "He teareth himself in his anger." Bildad means to indicate that Job was in a paroxysm of fury, that he had thrown aside the reins of reason, and that he was borne on the whirlwind of exasperated passion. Hence he administers reproof: "Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?" As if he had said, Thou speakest as if everything and everybody must give way to thee; as if the interests of all others must yield to thee; and that thou must have the whole world to thyself, and all of us must clear off. "Shall the rock be removed out of his place?" As if he had said, It would seem from thy reckless speech that thou wouldest have the most immutable things in nature to suit thy comfort and convenience. Rage is bad. When man gives way to temper he dishonours his nature, he imperils his well-being, he wars with God and the order of the universe. Now we are far enough from justifying Bildad in charging these evils upon Job; albeit he was right in treating them as evils. II. THE RETRIBUTIVE IS DESTINY. What are the retributive calamities that pursue and overtake the sinner? 1. Desolation. "The light of the wicked shall be put out." Light, by the Orientals, was ever used as the emblem of prosperity. The extinction of the light therefore is an image of utter desolation. Sin evermore makes desolate. 2. Embarrassment. "The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own council shall cast him down," etc. In every step of the sinner's path it may be said "the snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him by the way." Truly the wicked is snared by the work of his own hands. 3. Alarms. "Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet," etc. (vers. 11-14). Fear is at once the offspring and avenger of sin. The guilty conscience peoples the whole sphere of life with the grim emissaries of retribution. Fear is one of hell's most tormenting fiends. 4. Destruction. "It shall dwell in his tabernacle because it is none of his," etc. (vers. 15-21). His home will be gone; his tabernacle will be "none of his" any longer. His memory will be gone. "His remembrance shall perish from the earth." Once his name was heard in the street, pronounced perhaps often in the day by merchant, manufacturer, clerk, etc., but it has passed away from all tongues. His presence will be gone. "He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world." His progeny will be gone. He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people. His nearest relations will soon follow him to the grave, and none will appear to make mention of his name. Suffering must follow sin, as certain as season follows season. Hell is bound by chains stronger than those that bind the planets to the sun. (Homilist.) People JobPlaces UzTopics Cause, Closed, Exalt, Hast, Heart, Hearts, Hid, Hidden, Honour, Kept, Minds, Triumph, Understanding, Wilt, WisdomOutline 1. Job appeals from men to God6. The unmerciful dealing of men with the afflicted may astonish, 9. but not discourage the righteous 11. His hope is not in life, but in death Dictionary of Bible Themes Job 17:4Library 9Th Day. Persevering Grace. "He is Faithful that Promised." "The righteous shall hold on his way."--JOB xvii. 9. Persevering Grace. Reader! how comforting to thee amid the ebbings and flowings of thy changing history, to know that the change is all with thee, and not with thy God! Thy spiritual bark may be tossed on waves of temptation, in many a dark midnight. Thou mayest think thy pilot hath left thee, and be ready continually to say, "Where is my God?" But fear not! The bark which bears thy spiritual destinies is in better … John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser Whether Limbo is the Same as the Hell of the Damned? Whether Christ Went Down into the Hell of the Lost? Another Shorter Evening Prayer. Job Links Job 17:4 NIVJob 17:4 NLT Job 17:4 ESV Job 17:4 NASB Job 17:4 KJV Job 17:4 Bible Apps Job 17:4 Parallel Job 17:4 Biblia Paralela Job 17:4 Chinese Bible Job 17:4 French Bible Job 17:4 German Bible Job 17:4 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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